Tuesday May 22, 2012

So now no one can look at the representation of President Zuma’s genitalia on the Brett Murray’s painting in the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, any more.  This morning, two men walked into the gallery, and after one man painted a red X over the offending area, the other threw a can of black paint over the whole work, obscuring both the face and the body.

No issue has had the country so up in arms - on one side or the other – since, oh yes, since the Zuma rape case. 

My day started with a dash to a recording studio in Sea Point where the BBC had booked a studio for me to do a live interview on their World Service programme, commenting on the Zuma painting affair, and what the painting symbolized. The email from the BBC in London asking me to talk on the matter as Founding Editor of ArtThrob came yesterday, but this morning the hookup never came through. Presumably a bigger story had bumped the Zuma painting off the list.

Not in this country. Early today, Brett told me he had got his fighting spirit back after being thoroughly disorientated by the fury unleashed by his work. But two hours later, the news that a Shembe chief had said he should be subjected to a public stoning left him shaken again.

Who knows where it will all end.